No One Leaves Unscathed: A Woman in the Marine Corps
by Stesha Colby-Lynch
In September 2006, Stesha Colby-Lynch left Memphis to head into the Marine Corps, not knowing that it would have a lasting impact on her life. However, her life in the Marines began not in 2006, but in 1984, with her birth as a Marine dependent. Stesha survived a dysfunctional childhood, only to be sacrificed to the horrors of abuse within the fabric of the Marine Corps. Instead of seeking professional help, she turned to alcohol, sex, and other substances as coping mechanisms.
Stesha’s book offers insight into a life born of its time, before, during, and after her military service. She tells funny but heartbreaking stories of life in poverty in the religious South in the 1980s and 1990s. She reflects on the people she met and the lessons she learned as a non-combat Marine in the late aughts. And she offers her readers a glimpse into the mind of a mentally ill veteran, as her struggle with alcohol affect her studies and early career and she is forced to come to terms with the ghosts of her past.
No One Leaves Unscathed is a book replete with stories of love, friendship, and survival.
